NASS/Exco face-off

The annual spat between the executive and the National Assembly over their constitutional prerogatives with respect to the Appropriation Act deserves a denouement. The report in the media that the presidency will approach the Supreme Court for a determination of the constitutional rights of the feuding duo is a welcome development. Indeed, if the presidency demurs, we urge the National Assembly to take on the challenge, so as to rest the matter permanently.

The annual bickering must come to an end in the interest of our national economy and ordinary Nigerians, who are affected by the unconscionable delays in the enactment of the annual Appropriation Act. Since 1999, the sordid drama in the making of the Act usually starts with delays by the executive in preparing and laying the budget before the National Assembly. When eventually that hurdle is surmounted, the National Assembly begins its own drama of exerting authority, over what will be in the budget.

Obviously, the elaborate provisions of sections 80 and 81 of the 1999 constitution, as amended, have been differently interpreted by the two arms. While the executive insists that it has the prerogative to determine what projects are to be funded, the priorities and the sums to be expended on the projects; the legislature, in interpreting the constitutional provisions, insists that it has the ultimate power to determine the projects and the amount to be expended on those projects. Thankfully, section 6(6)(b) of the constitution imbues the courts with the power to determine disputes between authorities of government, among other persons.

We also wonder whether this type of dispute is within the contemplation of section 232(1) of the constitution, which gives exclusive jurisdiction to the Supreme Court, to the exclusion of other courts, with respect to disputes between the federation and a state, “on which the existence or extent of a legal right depends.” If it does, then it will be a one bus stop, to determine as between the executive and the legislature who has what right, and to what extent. In our view, the executive has the prerogative to prepare the budget and ascribe costs to the head of expenditure.

If the legislature is to tinker with the estimate, then it has to be minor, unlike the current instance where huge heads of expenditure are incorporated and even humongous sums assigned, probably not within the income bracket of the nation, which is exclusively within the knowledge of the executive. Partly because of the context as to who, between the executive and the legislature, has the final say over what should be in the Appropriation Act, and sometimes duplicity, Nigerians have been regaled with tales of budget padding.

By definition, the executive branch executes, the legislature makes law. Budget is about executing projects, and it should be within the purview only of the executive branch. We also believe that some legislators who had been governors, tend to behave in a manner suggesting that they may not have fully let-off their erstwhile executive powers. They try to foist, in some instances, budget heads for even local governments responsibilities, in the name of constituency projects. In practice, after the budget has been unduly delayed, the executive is usually under pressure to sign whatever the legislature thrusts on her, with lame promises extracted to amend the Appropriation Act, down the road.

Of course, the promise and failure to keep it cause further distortions, which when taken together with the insufficiency of funds and the lethargy on the part of the executive, makes a mockery of the Appropriation Act, with respect to the percentage of implementation. To end this yearly bickering over the national budget, the parties should approach the Supreme Court to determine their powers once and for all.